Once again, Robin Edgar has made another list of resolutions on his ‘Emerson Avenger’ blog, all related to his obsessive need to try to bring down Unitarian Universalism for failing to stroke his ego.

The first two are to be expected; he claims that he will ‘hold accountable’ the UUA and their Canadian law firm for their civil actions against his continual harassment and defamation. How? Golly, could we see yet more picketing and rage-filled screeds? After all, the only time he took legal action, with the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal, his complaint was dismissed for lack of merit. Still, we shouldn’t be surprised if he attempts some sort of counter-suit.

But the most outrageous on his list of resolutions is as follows:

Blog about at least two other well documented cases of Unitarian Universalist clergy or U*U Religious Educators who have actually been charged with, and convicted of, engaging in the despicable crime known as pedophilia.

We have seen this before, with his relentlessly repeating rants about former UU minister Mack Mitchell. The man was turned in by members of his own congregation, suspended from ministry during legal proceedings, and formally stripped of his ministerial credentials once convicted. But no, this isn’t good enough for Robin Edgar. Apparently he wants ‘U*U justice’ to be impossibly swift and sure. Would it help, Mister Edgar, if the Ministerial Fellowship Committee traveled back in time to undo everything? Considering his obsessive desire to hold grudges, we wouldn’t be surprised if even that was not good enough for him!

For all we know, the cases he’s talking about could involve people reported to the UUA by active UUs, and acted upon promptly and properly by both UU officials and law enforcement. It could also be that these are cases from long before the UUA had learned its lesson and implemented better policies for dealing with issues of professional misconduct, and for which the UUA has apologised and made restitution.

But, as we have seen before, nothing the UUA or any UU minister or leader could ever do will ever satisfy him. His self-defeating efforts are but sad attempts to bring down an organization and a movement devoted to compassion and forgiveness – something which, from what we can tell of his statements and behaviour, he seems very sorely lacking. It is a shame that a man with such energy must waste so much of it lashing out at a religious community instead of moving on and trying to build something better. Remember, also, this is a man who has refused to promise to remain non-violent in his so-called quest for ‘justice’. All we can do, sad to say, is remain vigilant and hopeful that he will not escalate into something much worse.

Don’t ever play cards with Robin Edgar. Because, if he plays the same way he responds to Unitarian Universalists, then he’s bound to rig the deck in his favour. Always.

If you’re a UU minister, and you post something on your blog which he does not like, then he attacks you. He’ll even file a ‘formal complaint of clergy misconduct’ (albeit to the wrong people) against you, and demand a response.

If he does not get a response to his misplaced ‘formal complaint’, then he will continually hound and harass the President of the UUA for one (even though the President’s office is not where such complaints are supposed to be delivered)

Well, let us say that you now remove the offending post, for whatever reason. Still not good enough. Now you are guilty of ‘memory-holing,’ because in Robin Edgar’s bizarre view of reality, you can never ever make amends for any mistake, and you must be forced to live with your mistakes forever and ever and ever.

After Robin Edgar’s latest ‘Emerson Avenger’ post, repeating once again his overblown ‘charges’ against Reverend Cynthia Cain, we can just picture him like Glenn Close’s famous character:

‘I’m not going to be IGNO-O-O-ORED, UUs!!!’

And just like Michael Douglas, we’re left trying to explain to him: ‘You just don’t get it, do you?’

Sadly, no. Robin Edgar does not ‘get’ how his outlandish behaviour constitutes harassment, or how it differs from the conduct of the UU ministers he obsessively fixates upon.

Cynthia Cain posted a comment on her own blog about the mean-spirited words and actions of certain US Republican leaders. She pretty much left it at that.

Robin Edgar, on the other hand, notoriously doesn’t ‘leave it at that’ when he targets you. No, a single blog post is not enough – he must blog about you constantly. And comment about you on other blogs and Internet forums constantly. And barrage you with emails constantly. And, just for good measure, make a picket sign referring to you, and use it in his ‘peaceful public protests’ constantly.

Do you now see why we are concerned about how far he might be willing to go? Anybody this obsessed, and who feels ignored, to the point of ruining his own life on a hopeless crusade to ruin others, will not stop merely at verbal abuse and harassment.

Most people would have let go and moved on long ago. But not when they are as obsessive, self-centered, rage-filled and ‘entitled’ as Robin Edgar. He’s not going to be ignored.

Perhaps, then, we are doing a service. By not ignoring him, by warning UUs and others about the potential danger of his warped mindset and behaviour, we are diverting him away from a potential escalation to violence.

We can only hope, just as we hope that he will finally get the help he needs.

In Robin Edgar’s latest ‘Emerson Avenger’ blog post, he attempts to hijack Revered Fred Small’s words, all to justify himself. In his mind, since Small proclaimed, in the Universalist tradition, that God’s love is infinite and unbounded, that this somehow means that God approves of Mister Edgar’s outrageous statements and behaviour.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Mister Edgar, God loves you. Many Unitarian Universalists love you. We love you. But that doesn’t mean that you are immune from criticism, or that God or any of us are giving you carte blanche to exercise vengeance (however lame and misguided) on those you disagree with or don’t approve of. It certainly does not mean being thin-skinned and mean-spirited on your part.

As for your proclamation that our churches are ‘dead’, we just have to wonder, if that is the case, then why do you persist in beating a dead horse?

Mister Edgar, you just don’t get the message of Universalism. It is not simply that God’s love is infinite. It is that we, as God’s creation, should strive to act in love towards others – all of us, including you.

It means forgiveness, mercy, forbearance and honesty – qualities which we frankly find sorely lacking in your words and deeds.

It means moving on with your life, and doing something more constructive than repeating the same ‘peaceful public protest’ (read harassment) and sitting in a public library flaming UUs online in even the most irrelevant forums.

No, instead you pursue the practice of vengeance, even thinking up new reasons to lash out at Unitarian Universalists everywhere. Your path is not about love, but anger.

We do love you, Mister Edgar, as hard as it is for you to imagine. But do not love what you say or do. We wish you could do better, but your failure to see this only makes us pity you all the more.

When Robin Edgar could not get the attention he craved by writing long, insulting letters to members of the Unitarian Church of Montreal, not to mention any and every staffperson and leader in the Canadian Unitarian Council and Unitarian Universalist Association, what did he do? Resort to harassing the UCM and other UUs with pickets.

When the pickets did not get the attention he craved, what did he do? Use email and discussion lists to lash out at UUs everywhere and claim victimhood status?

When that did not work? He created his very own blog, not to mention posting lengthy rants and screeds on other people’s blogs, even blogs and blog posts which have nothing to do with Unitarian Universalism, much less his claims of being ‘persecuted’ and ‘abused’.

Likewise, all but a minority of UUs have blocked him from their emails and blogs. So what has Robin Edgar done?

Fortunately, Twitter has a block feature, and we encourage UUs to take advantage of this to keep @RobinEdgar from clogging your account with more inane attacks, insults and so-called ‘parody and sarcasm’. For those who need help, here is a link to walk you through it.

One of our readers has reported that he has tracked the origin of Robin Edgar’s Internet activity:

the IP listed is Bibliotheque Nationale Du Quebec.

Indeed, this is the provincial library for Quebec, and their website shows that, like other public libraries, they offer free Internet service. As our reader speculates:

if he’s accessing the internet through the library these days, that might mean he’s now unemployed- which would explain how he has time for all this. And why he’s been extra bitter lately, too.

Now, when most people lose a job, they devote their time to finding a new one. Instead, Robin Edgar appears to be increasing his lashing out at Unitarian Universalist. Does he actually believe this will get him gainful employment?

An alternative explanation is that he actually works at the library … and is doing his anti-UU blogging, commenting and web-surfing while on the job. Not likely, however, as most large employers tend to monitor their personnel’s computer activity these days.

Either way, we have a question for Mister Edgar. How can you continue to insist that you are not obsessed? Only an obsessed individual would spend more time online lashing out in anger at so many individuals instead of finding gainful employment and moving on with your life. Only an obsessed individual would engage in such behaviour while on the clock, placing their employment status in jeopary.

This is not the behaviour of a healthy individual. You need to move on with your life, sir. Rather than dwell on the ‘wrongs’ which you constantly allege have been done against you, or claiming to be some righteous crusader while behaving like a rage-filled stalker, the time is long overdue for you to let go. You say that you are a spiritual man, Mister Edgar. The great spiritual traditions of the world call for forgiveness of wrongs, whether perceived or real. Why are you so unable to embrace this virtue?

Get help, Mister Edgar. We implore you once again. Putting this campaign of rancor and bitterness above earning a decent wage makes no sense, and cannot lead to anything good for you.

Just more of the same angry rants from Robin Edgar. More of his attempting to show how he is always right and ‘Big Fat U*U Ass Hats’ are always wrong.

Of course, he does not show how we, or any other UUs who question or disagree with him, are actually WRONG. He even admits that he has no evidence that a UU blogger labeled all Republicans as mean people … and yet, he continues to say the same things, over and over, accusing anybody who dares to challenge his view of reality as ‘outrageously hypocritical,’ while wilfully ignoring his own hypocrisy of criticising others of engaging in the very behaviour of which he himself is guilty.

We have heard this all before, Mister Edgar, for years now. Are you even capable of admitting to being wrong or mistaken about anything? You keep demanding apologies from so many UUs. Are you even capable of apologising for the hurt that you have caused, and continue to cause? Or is your state of mind so warped that you cannot ever see it, and cannot even forgive?

We have commented before on the use of violent rhetoric and imagery in Robin Edgar’s blog and comments, and our concern that the escalation we have observed could lead to his eventually becoming violent in actuality. He has chosen to respond that he has always remained ‘peaceful’ (albeit with a continually angry tone, preferably laden with insults such as ‘morons’ and ‘asshats’).

Still, we notice that he has never explicitly pledged to remain nonviolent in his actions, but that his choice of words and images continues to reveal a man consumed with such bitterness and rage, that those who become his targets have good cause to be concerned for their very safety.

Mister Edgar, this is our question to you: Will you now pledge to never engage in violent actions against any and all Unitarian Universalists?

It is a simple question, and one deserving of an answer. Since you are so fond of perseverating how you only engage in ‘peaceful public protest,’ will you now assure by your promise that your behaviour will always remain peacful, and that you will at least take no action to do physical harm against those whom you protest against?

Well, at least Robin Edgar is not claiming to speak for ‘victims’ of UU ‘injustices, abuses and hypocrisies.’ Now his latest complaint is about his ‘peaceful public protest’ being ‘silenced’ by the Unitarian Church of Montreal calling the police.

As reported before by a member of the UCM, the Montreal police were the ones who advised the local church to call them whenever he harassed them.

Robin Edgar now wants his repeated lashing out at the UCM, at UU ministers, and indeed at UUs everywhere, to be a form of ‘dissent’ instead of what it really is: harassment, pure and simple.

Dissenters have a point to get across. Harassers simply attack their targets for the sake of attacking them, and any message they might have had becomes lost in the process. Robin Edgar has been attacking so often and for so long, it has caused scores of individuals all over to ask him why he keeps doing it (and he keeps telling them to go look for themselves, or goes on yet another long tirade about how he was abused by ‘obnoxious’ UUs, all the while neglecting to mention his own abusive and obnoxious behaviour).

The goal of dissent is to get those with whom you disagree to listen and make changes, or to call on other to pressure those into doing so. The goal of harassment is to shame, humiliate and intimidate, with no clear goal in sight. Robin Edgar has not merely ‘disagreed’ with UUs but has resorted to personal attacks, verbal abuse, deliberately offensive behaviour, and even outright defamation; but whenever asked to state what he hopes to accomplish, the only clear answer he’s given has been for a dispute now over a decade past to be reviewed yet again, and to be found in his favour simply because he refuses to even consider that he might be wrong.

Unitarian Universalists welcome healthy disagreement. It is what brought our faith movement into existence. That is a far cry, however, from the blatantly disagreeable conduct of Robin Edgar, which has persisted for far too long.

It would appear that Robin Edgar has entered another ‘manic phase,’ so to speak, of picketing and posting. Stimulated by the Crown Prosecutors’ strike in Montreal, it matters not to him that their demands and his demands have not connection whatsoever. No, he’s going on a binge of pickets in the city, and six blog posts in two days.

And his message in sum? Perhaps it could reduced to: ‘Lookit me say UUs bad!’

He continually attacks and accuses UUs of any and every form of wrongdoing he can think of, even when he fails to provide any proof behind his accusations and allegations. He continually complains about the same people and same events, even when those people are long since gone, and those events years or decades behind.

Robin Edgar gloats that his crusade for ‘justice’ (translation: Robin Edgar getting whatever he wants, whatever that may be) has been going on for fifteen years. Let’s see, now. Mister Edgar has been attacking, harassing, insulting, and by his own admission gone out of his way to be deliberately offensive and annoying, for a decade and a half. And what progress has be acheived? As far as we can tell, None!

Yet he keeps doing the same thing, over and over again, each time hoping for a different result. Is that not a classic definition of insanity?